The Only Thing Constant Is Change
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Change is hard. Behind the scenes at Cox, Matthews and Associates, I can tell you that helping manage the shift from Black Issues In Higher Education to Diverse has presented considerable challenges for the staff here in Fairfax, Va. It’s been a fascinating process that has required heroic efforts from my colleagues, and it will continue to do so as we move forward from this ambitious launch.
In our inaugural issue, we thought it would be fitting to have a panel of distinguished scholars and higher education leaders shed some light on how they interpret diversity in American higher education. Not surprisingly, the subject of diversity proved to generate so much dialogue that we had to present it to you in two parts. In this issue, we feature the second part of that discussion in “Dissecting Diversity, Part II.”
In “All About the Mission,” assistant editor Kendra Hamilton details in a fascinating profile of Berea College that Kentucky institution’s long history of diversity and inclusion. From its founding in 1855, Berea College educated Blacks and Whites alongside each other in what was a brave and radical experiment for a college in the South prior to the Civil War. Despite its forced closure during the Civil War, and Jim Crow-era state laws banning interracial education, Berea College managed to return to its visionary roots in the civil rights period.
The racially diverse school now practices what no other highly competitive academic institution in the United States would dare contemplate. It enrolls a student body within which every student requires some form of financial aid. Going beyond being a model of racial and ethnic diversity with its students and faculty, Berea offers a shining example of how a higher education institution can provide quality college education to students who are the least able to afford it.
